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MBA aspirants rue B-Schools admission process

New Delhi, Jan 10 IBNS | 2 years ago

The admission process to Masters in Business Administration (MBA) and Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) programs, in India, is cumbersome and expensive, believe management aspirants, according to India's first-ever study of B-School aspirants.

Conducted by MBAUniverse.com, India's most respected voice of MBA community, in November 2013, it is an online survey of 445 respondents who appeared for Common Admission Test (CAT) for the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs).

Three out of five respondents said that there are too many MBA entrance exams and three out of fourwanted a regulatory body to oversee management education.

The MBA aspirants sought reduction in tuition fee, better public disclosure on placement track record and normalization process in the CAT qualifying scores. One-third test takers also said that the application fee to B-schools should be less than Rs. 500.

"MBAUniverse.com's first survey of MBA aspirants brings out key insights which will help business schools and policy makers address concerns and initiate reforms. Else, we will see more B-Schools closing down," says Amit Agnihotri, chairman of MBAUniverse.com.

While two in every three aspirants welcomed innovative changes like replacement of group discussion with Written Ability Test, almost seven in every ten wanted higher weightage for candidates with non-engineering background.

Respondents suggested that the 140 B-schools who accept CAT results for admission, should let the applicant apply to a B-school after getting their CAT scores in January unlike the current way where many B-schools like MDI and SP Jain close their application process in December itself much before CAT results are announced, incurring unnecessary expense.

More than half the respondents spent in excess of Rs 10,000 on preparing for MBA entrance exams.

An overwhelming majority of the respondents wanted to pursue an MBA for knowledge enhancement while more than 65 per cent wanted it for a better salary.

Among the parameters on which respondents selected B-schools Placement history was at the top followed by corporate linkages, position of B-Schools in various rankings and Government approvals and faculty. Specializations offered, fee structure and location were not very important for the respondents.

Of the 445 respondents seeking admission to 2014 program 94 per cent said CAT was their first choice within more than 10 MBA exams held every year for MBA admissions. For 66.7 per cent of the respondents XAT was the second most preferred examination.

NMAT and SNAP exam were close third and fourth (for 45.8 per cent and 44.4 per cent) while IIFT exam, the fifth most preferred exam, was the first preference for 34.7 per cent of the candidates.

CMAT exam floated by AICTE as the only gateway for MBA entrance in 2011, along with AIMA MAT were the least preferred tests with a score of 30.6 per cent and 16.7 per cent.

Almost half the MBA aspirants relied on websites of individual B-Schools as the most credible and trustworthy source of information followed by online MBA portals, like MBAUniverse.com, as the second most preferred source for 29.3 per cent of aspirants.

For 27 per cent aspirants Delhi is the preferred destination for MBA education followed by Bengaluru (25.4 per cent), Mumbai (18.3 per cent) and Ahmedabad (11.3 per cent).